Technical Field
The present invention relates to a vehicle front portion structure.
Related Art
In the vehicle front portion structure disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2014-156198 that is described hereinafter, a spacer is provided at the outer side wall of a front side member. This spacer has a rear side mounting portion that is fastened to the outer side wall of the front side member, an outer side front wall portion that is positioned further toward the vehicle front side and the vehicle transverse direction outer side than the rear side mounting portion, and a load transmitting rib that connects the outer side front wall portion and the rear side mounting portion.
When a collision body collides with the outer side front wall portion of the spacer at the time of a small-overlap collision of the vehicle (among front collisions of a vehicle, for example, a collision in which the amount of overlap in the vehicle transverse direction with the collision body that is prescribed by IIHS is less than or equal to 25%), the collision load toward the vehicle rear side is transmitted via the load transmitting rib to the rear side mounting portion, and the front side member deforms so as to bend. Concretely, the spacer rotates with the rear side mounting portion being the starting point such that the region of the spacer, which region is further toward the vehicle rear side than the rear side mounting portion, is displaced toward the vehicle transverse direction inner side, and the front side member bends so as to become convex toward the vehicle transverse direction inner side. As a result, the power unit of the vehicle is pushed toward the vehicle transverse direction inner side by the front side member, and lateral force toward the vehicle transverse direction inner side arises at the power unit.
By the way, in order to effectively absorb collision energy at the time of a small overlap collision, it is desirable to compressively deform the front side member in the vehicle longitudinal direction by the collision load that is inputted to the spacer.
However, in the above-described vehicle front portion structure, as described above, in the initial stage of a small overlap collision, the front side member bends so as to become convex toward the vehicle transverse direction inner side, and therefore, this is a structure in which it is difficult to compressively deform the front side member in the vehicle longitudinal direction. Thus, in the above-described vehicle front portion structure, there is room for improvement with regard to effectively absorbing collision energy.